Things You've Never Done
by BJ111
Summary: Set after Hero in the Hold, it was originally intended as a oneshot but it has now turned into a multichap one.. anyway : read&review please :D *NOW COMPLETE*
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first fanfic, so it might not be really great, but I'd love it if you read (and reviewed) it anyway ******

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters ******

'Hello? Bones?' Booth knocked on the door again. 'Are you in there?' No one answered. He pushed against the door, which swung open easily.

'Bones? How many times do I have to tell you not to leave your door open? I could've been some kind of serial killer who wants to torture you to... Hello?'

Booth walked trough the hallway, wondering who would leave their door open while they're not even at home. You would have to be really stupid to do that.. and Bones wasn't stupid. So she had to be somewhere in here..

He was about to call her cell when he saw her sitting on the corner of her couch, curled up in a ball. 'Hey, Bones, are you alright?' She didn't move, it was almost as if she hadn't noticed he was there at all. He walked closer and sat down next to her on the couch. She still didn't look up, as if she was ashamed of something. He put his arm around her and pulled her close. 'What's going on?' he asked softly. She shook his arm off her shoulder and sniffed. 'I'm fine, it's nothing. You should just go.' She answered, her voice sounding like she'd been crying.

Sure. He was not going to give up so easily, since she was clearly nót fine. He put his fingers under her chin and turned her head towards him. She resisted a little but finally gave up and looked him in the eye. Her eyes were red around the edges, she had definitely been crying. 'You can tell me you're fine all you want, but anyone could see you're not. And you've been acting weird ever since you saved me from the Grave Digger, so I'm starting to feel like this is all my fault.. is it?' He didn't know what inspired him to say all those things, but seeing Brennan like that made him want to comfort her, and telling her the truth had just seemed like the best option. Now he wasn't so sure anymore. She was looking at him like he'd just killed her favorite pet.

Her stare softened and she sniffed again. 'I'm sorry, Booth. It's not your fault. It's mine.. kind of..I guess..'

He was starting to get really worried, Bones didn't guess. She knew. She never had to guess because she could always find the answers somewhere.

'Bones, you can tell me.. if you want to..' No, that was wrong. She didn't have a choice. He needed to know. But he didn't want to push her, knowing that that would have the opposite effect. 'It's just..' she was clearly searching for the right words, and clearly not finding them.

'You know what? It is your fault. You have to not.. not.. almost die so often. Because every time I feel like I've lost you it makes me think about all those things I've never gotten the chance to do, like..' She looked up to him, her eyes filled with tears. One moment she was just looking at him, the next she was crushing her lips against his, almost knocking him off the couch. He was hesitating for a second, but then returned her kiss with the same kind of passion. As abruptly as it had started, it also ended. A little flushed, she started talking again, seemingly ignoring the past few seconds. 'It makes me think about how much I love you.'


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: This chapter's style might be a little different from the first, because when I wrote the first I was in a not-being-able-to-sleep-and-come-up-with-crazy-stories-mood, and this one's written in my after-school-desperately-looking-for-distraction-mood ******

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters ******

Temperance Brennan had never told anyone she loved him. Well, not told anyone and actually meant it. Certainly not told anyone and kicked him out right after. Until last night.

She had been sitting next to the door for hours after he left, eventually falling asleep. When she woke up the next morning, every muscle in her body felt stiff. She thought briefly about calling in sick, but quickly decided that would just raise everyone's suspicion. She would just have to avoid Booth. Forever. The thought made her sick.

There had to be some other solution, that didn't involve facing Booth and having to talk about what had happened. Some solution that would give her time to think... or find a way to successfully pretend the whole thing had never happened. Her brains couldn't come up with anything better than jumping out of the window and hoping she would hit her head so hard it would cause amnesia. Unfortunately, jumping out of the window was more likely to cause death than amnesia.

So she had to go to work. She could just spend the whole day in the lab looking at some old bones, hoping Booth wouldn't show up. That would work. She hoped.

But of course, it didn't. She had barely walked into her office when she heard the familiar footsteps behind her.

"I don't want to talk about it, Booth."

"Talk about what, Sweetie?"

Shit.

How could she have possibly mistaken Angela's footsteps for Booth's? A little voice in her head suggested maybe she had wanted it to be Booth, that she had wanted him to walk into her office and force her to talk about everything. However, the little voice was interrupted by an actual voice, demanding an answer. "Talk about whát?"

"Ehm.." Think of an answer. Think of an answer. Think of an answer. Don't think about having to think of an answer, just come up with a decent answer explaining why you didn't want to talk about something with Booth. For once in her life, her brain was completely silent.

Shit.

She turned around, wishing she had put on some more make-up to hide her lack of decent sleep. "Oh, hi Ange" she said sheepishly.

Angela didn't move an inch and just continued to stare at Brennan, with her arms folded over her chest. She looked a little bit frightening.

"I... thought you were Booth."

"Yeah, I figured that out when you called me Booth. I'm a little offended actually, do I really sound like him?" Angela shuddered.

"It was just something about a case.."

"No it wasn't."

Great. Typically Angela to choose this day to interrogate her. The day half her brain had decided to abandon her and find a place in her body to die and slowly decompose. This really couldn't get any worse.

Suddenly there was a knock on her door.

"Bones, can I talk to you for a minute? Alone?"

Shit.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: I just want to thank everybody who reviewed, and those who put my story on story alerts ,though I would really like it if you also reviewed :-), and I hope my third chapter won't disappoint you..

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Angela turned around, with her arms still folded over her chest.

"She doesn't want to talk about it." Angela said, not sounding very open to any kind of discussion.

Booth's eyes turned towards Brennan. "You told her?"

"I didn't tell her anything! She just.. walked in and I thought she was you." Brennan mumbled, trying to avoid his eyes.

"My footsteps sound like hérs?" Great. Now she had offended both Angela ánd Booth. Not good.

"No.. I'm just.." she couldn't come up with a logical ending to her sentence and just rushed out of the room, leaving Angela and Booth behind.

"Could anyone, well, preferably you, pléase tell me what is going on here?" Angela pleaded.

Booth tried to look like he was considering telling her, though there was no hair on his head that thought about telling Brennan's best friend something even Brennan didn't want to tell her.. "Well.. you know.. she obviously doesn't want to tell you and I'm not sure if I want to be the one to do it behind her back. She might not really... appreciate it." That was definitely the understatement of the year. There was no way the words Brennan and appreciation would ever going to be mentioned in the same sentence again, not even a negative one.

"I promise I won't tell anyone."

Booth snorted.

"Hey! I'm perfectly capable of keeping a secret!" I just don't always wánt to, Angela added to herself.

"She'll tell you when she's ready. And now I need to go find her, because no way she's getting away with this so easily." Booth answered and followed Brennan out of the room, though she was nowhere to be seen.

Brennan walked quickly past everything and everyone, just wanting to have some time without any live human beings around her. After a few moments she focused on her surroundings, finding she had unconsciously walked into limbo. She passed a few more rows of unidentified bones and eventually sat down on the floor, letting her head lean against the cold wall. After a minute her breathing started to calm down, though she hadn't even noticed it had quickened in the first place. She closed her eyes and decided she would just sit there for the rest of the day. Or the rest of the week. Or longer. She would sit there and die of thirst and no one would find her body for the next decade and someday her bones would end up as Jane Doe number five-thousand-something. That seemed like an appropriate ending.

Suddenly she sensed something warm next to her and she opened her eyes. No peaceful ending in limbo for her. Booth was sitting next to her in the same position, just staring ahead. He didn't turn his head towards her but just started talking to the empty space in front of him. "You really don't want to talk about it? Because I do. I have some questions and I kind of need answers.." Her first instinct was to say no, but the missing part of her brain had apparently returned and forced her to consider it. She wás kind of curious about his questions. And to be honest, she was even more curious about her own answers. "Ask." She simply said.

Her answer clearly surprised Booth, but he adjusted within seconds. "Eh, okay. Well, for starters...did you mean what you said yesterday?"

Did she? She looked at him. She did. "I did."

This time he did look at her, his eyes filled with something she couldn't identify. His face started to come closer, but she quickly turned away. "Now it's my turn." she stated. "Do you..you know.." she swallowed hard. "Love me?" There was a silence and she started to look for a way to control the damage she had just done to their 'purely professional' partnership "Because, well, if you don't it's fine, I can perfectly control my emotional side around you and we can just work together like none of this ever happened and.." She had started rambling and she knew it, but didn't have the strength to stop herself. Suddenly her lips were unable to move, captured between his. She froze for a moment, but her tense muscles automatically relaxed and she melted into the kiss.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Though I know an average of 4 reviews per chapter is not very much compared to certain other stories, I'm very grateful to everyone who reads and reviews it, since it's my first attempt at writing a fanfiction and every review is a new personal record :P**

**I hope you enjoy my next chapter!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters..**

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After a while they reluctantly pulled apart, not sure what to do next. Brennan straightened herself up a little bit and took a deep breath.

"We should get back to work, before anyone starts suspecting something" she said.

"So we're not going to tell them?"

"Tell them what?"

"You're not going to pretend this never happened.. do you?" He tried his best to sound casual, but he was quite sure she had heard the desperation seeping through at the end of his question.

She looked him in the eye. "You think I could?" she whispered. At that moment there was nothing he was more sure of than that she couldn't. That he couldn't. But as most moments, it didn't last very long. Brennan appeared to freak out a little at its intensity and quickly changed to a lighter subject.

"So.. what do we tell Angela? I'm pretty sure she'll be sitting on my couch when I walk into my office, and though never walking into my office again might sound very tempting right now, she's my best friend. And I'll have to face her someday."

Booth didn't like how true that sounded, since he could still vividly remember the look on Angela's face when he had last seen her. His body shuddered involuntarily at the image.

"Do you want to tell her what happened? Because if you don't, we have to come up with a really convincing story, as Angela is the only one in this lab with a few social skills, and she might not fall for a simple 'I'm just really tired' excuse."

Now it was Brennan's turn to shudder. She too remembered Angela's face. She felt a sting of guilt when she thought of the fact that she had left Booth alone with that face only a few minutes ago. "I'll talk to her. Alone." ,she said with more courage than she was actually feeling.

"Why alone?"

"It'd be best for all the murder victims out there if at least one of us is still alive."

Booth grinned. "Point taken. What are you going to tell her?"

"I don't know.." ,Brennan sighed. She really didn't. She didn't even know what was going on between her and Booth, if they were in a relationship, if they were..how did Angela call it? Friends with benefits…though friends didn't really sound like the right explanation for what she was feeling.

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone. Her hand instinctively went to the pocket of her lab coat, but it was actually Booth's phone that was causing the noise.

"Booth" He said.

There were some vague noises coming from the phone Brennan couldn't understand and she settled on watching Booth's face as he listened to the interrupter.

"Okay.. I'll be right there." Booth clapped his phone shut and started to get up.

"I'm sorry, I really have to go.. Good luck with Angela" He couldn't entirely hide the relief of not being in the same building as Brennan's overly curious best friend for the upcoming hours. Brennan shot him an annoyed look, which faded quickly as he bent down and kissed her lightly on the lips before he left.

As she watched him walk away she decided that they definitely weren't friends with benefits, at least not if it was up to here. The lingering feeling of his lips on hers agreed.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to LiesX, first of all because she's been helping me come up with some ideas for my next chapters, and because she's an Angela fan :) I hope you like this chap! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters..**

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Brennan was standing in front of her office door. She'd been standing there for a while now. She could see Angela sitting on the couch through the blinds and she had still no idea what she was going to tell her, so she had decided to keep standing in front of the door until she figured it out. She should've thought about the fact that if she could see Angela, Angela only had to turn around to see her. And that is exactly what Angela did next: she turned around. Uh-oh.

Angela quickly stood up and momentarily disappeared from Brennan's view, but the next thing she knew the door opened, someone grabbed her arm and she was pulled inside.

She heard the door close again behind her, but she couldn't have cared less, since she was looking at Angela, who had the biggest, scariest grin ever on her face.

"You are going to tell me what happened, and I'm going to know if you're lying. Okay?"

"I'm going to assume that that is a rhetorical question, because I don't think it will make any difference if I say yes or no." Brennan said, hoping she was wrong. Which, of course, she wasn't.

"Just tell me, Sweetie."

Brennan sighed, deciding it was actually most likely that the best thing to do was indeed to just tell her best friend. Maybe Angela could help her, and even if she couldn't, it was better than having to keep it secret from her.

"Well.. yesterday, I was sitting in my apartment when he stopped by.. And.. we kissed.". Brennan said, hoping Angela wouldn't push for further details.

No such luck.

"Did he kiss you? Or did you kiss him? How long did it last? Why did you kiss? What did you say? Have you talked to him? Did you sleep with him?"

"Ange!"

"Sweetie, I need details, okay? I've been waiting for this for four years. Fóúr years."

Brennan sighed again. "Okay. No, yes, I don't know exactly, I don't want to tell, I kicked him out, yes, no."

Angela looked confused.

"Those were the answers to your questions." Brennan tried to clarify.

"Oh."

Brennan could see that Angela was trying to remember which question she had asked first, and in what order Brennan had answered.

"You slept with him?" She asked incredulously.

"No Ange! Geez, what's wrong with you short-term memory?" Brennan laughed.

"But.. you kissed him, right?"

"Yeah." Brennan blushed and looked at the ground.

"Why? I mean, of course I have my theories, but you never even seemed to consider them."

"That's the part I don't want to tell, okay? Maybe someday.." Brennan said, still intently studying the carpet around her feet.

Angela could see this was probably the most she was going to get out of her friend right now, and decided to wait for a better opportunity… Maybe she could ask Brennan for a drink in a few days and get her so drunk she would tell her everything..

"Sure, Sweetie." Angela said, and she hugged Brennan tightly. "Thanks for telling me this.. let me know if you want to talk about it, 'kay?"

"Okay." Brennan whispered.

Angela released her and walked to the door. "I'll try not to tell anyone about it", Angela said, grinning, "_Try _being the key word."

It took a while for those words to sink in. "Ange, if you tell ányone, I will.." Brennan stopped mid-sentence, knowing Angela was probably already halfway through the lab and she would just end up with all the other people within hearing distance asking if everything was all right. She sighed again and sat down on her couch, wondering what she would do to her best friend if she actually had the nerve to tell people.

**I'm sorry it's so short (again..), but this is the only way I can get myself to update frequently xD I hope you liked it anyway :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long! I thought I was going to have a lot of free time but that turned out to be kind of a miscalculation.. but I'm back and I'll try to update more :) And as an attempt to make up for the waiting time, I made this chapter a little longer than most of the others.. (okay, now that I look at it, it doesn't seem very long, but it has about 300 more words than all the other chapters :P)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own these characters.. :(**

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Booth was sitting in his office, with paperwork laid out all over his desk. The meeting he had been called in for had only lasted for about half an hour, and he wanted to talk to Brennan, but he didn't want to risk going to the lab while Angela might still be questioning her. He wondered what Brennan was telling her best friend.. probably at least partly the truth, since Angela was already convinced something had happened between them and denying it would probably just make the whole conversation more noticeable for everyone else around them. Not satisfying Angela's curiosity was nót something you wanted to do if you were trying to hide personal things from other people.

But even though he had a good reason not to go see her, couldn't concentrate on his paperwork. His mind kept wandering to other, more important things. Like Bones telling him she loved him. He hadn't said it back.. when she asked if he felt the same for her he had just kissed her. Classic avoidance technique. He had felt something for her since the moment they met, but had always suppressed it and told himself it was just the necessary concern for his partner's safety. But he had to admit that after the whole mistletoe-kiss-thing he knew that probably the only thing keeping them apart was his own stupid line. Back then it had seemed logical that he shouldn't get involved with anyone he worked with again, but now Howard Epps was dead and he just couldn't see the point anymore. And they had already crossed the line anyway, so he decided to just forget about it. He loved her. He loved how she could look at bones for hours without feeling the need to eat, drink, or even sit down. He loved how enthusiastic she could get about things, though she had gotten a little too into the whole circus act thing. He even loved how clueless she could be about the most common things, because it all made her who she was. Suddenly he heard someone knocking on his door, with the annoyed tone of a person who had been waiting for a while. When he focused on his surroundings again he saw Bones standing in front of his glass door, and he quickly gestured for her to come in.

"Were you actually focusing on your work or just daydreaming?" She asked with mocking disapproval.

"Working, of course.." He answered. She shot him an unconvinced look but didn't keep asking. "Anyway, why are you here?" He tried to sound casual, hoping she wouldn't notice that he had been wanting to see her since he had left.

"Just thought you'd want to know how it went with Angela." She said, thinking the same thing Booth had when he'd asked the question.

"Oh, right", Booth said, glad for the excuse "How did it go?"

"Pretty well, actually. I told her that we kissed, well, that I kissed you. And I didn't really say anything else when she asked for details.. She let it go for now, but I think she's just working on some kind of evil plan to get me to tell her everything.."

"I love you." He blurted out. Brennan stopped talking and stared at him. Now that he thought about it, it probably was a little weird to just say something like that in the middle of a conversation.

"Eh, sorry, I didn't mean to say it like that, it was just that I hadn't told you before, you know, in Limbo, and I wanted you to know that.. I love you too."

He stopped with his rambling explanation when he saw her expression. She wasn't stunned anymore, her lips had formed a small smile and the look in her eyes made his heart skip a beat. When he was about to kiss her right there in his office, the moment was ruined by Brennan's stomach, making a loud growling sound. Brennan's cheeks turned bright red and now she was the one trying to talk herself out of a non-deliberate act. "Sorry, I must've forgotten to eat breakfast this morning… and diner last evening.. maybe we should go eat somewhere before I faint." He agreed with her, since she was looking really pale and judging from the dark lines under her eyes she hadn't gotten much sleep either. And of course he was happy with any excuse to leave his paperwork behind and be somewhere with Bones instead. They walked to the elevator together, and he had to fight the urge to take her hand. He couldn't believe that it was just yesterday evening that she had kissed him, it felt like they had been together forever. But, he thought to himself, they had been acting like an old married couple for years, and the kissing thing was just the last step to making it real. The elevator finally arrived, and they stepped into it. They didn't notice the person standing behind them until he started talking. "Hey guys, you going to see some totally decomposed bodies?", The familiar voice of their therapist asked. Booth turned around and was about to say that yes, they were going to a crime scene, so there was no possibility of Sweets coming with them, when he heard Brennan say; "No, we're actually just going to the diner to get a bite to eat." Oh no. She did nót just give Sweets an opportunity to misinterpret something she said like an invitation.

"Oh, great. Mind if I come with you?"

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**I hope you liked it! If you did (or didn't.. doesn't really matter), review! :D There are a lot of stories where I don't review just because I don't really know what to say, but now I know that the writer will be happy to have a review no matter what you write :P**


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: This chapter is about the same length as the previous, maybe a little longer ****:) I hope you enjoy it!**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing :(**

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"Yes. I mind." Booth said immediately. Both Brennan and Sweets turned to look at him, surprised. "Why?" They asked simultaneously. God, she had to be kidding him. He could understand that Sweets wanted an explanation, but did Bones not notice that the only thing he wanted -needed- to do right now was to kiss her? But that teenage idiot was standing in his way. And Booth didn't like that. "Because we're not going to the diner. We're going to my place and ordering some takeout, right Bones?" He tried to subtly signal her to say yes. "No, we're not." She said with a puzzled look on her face. "And what is wrong with your eyes?". Geez, she was even worse at non-verbal communication than he'd thought. How was he going to explain this one to Sweets?

"Well, you know, we hadn't made plans yet, but I would really like some Thai food, so we're going to my place, or yours if you want, and order some. Okay?"

"Oookay… You do realize that it's not even noon yet, right?" She answered, still with the non-understanding look.

"Let's just.." ,the elevator doors finally opened, "..go. 'Kay?" He grabbed her arm and half-dragged her out of the elevator.

"Bye Sweets!" She shouted over her shoulder before Booth pulled her towards the exit of the FBI building. The person at whom the hastily exclaimed goodbye was directed was left in stunned silence in the back of the elevator. Something was going on between those two.

"Why did you do that, Booth?" She asked as soon as they were out on the streets.

"Now he thinks you've gone completely crazy. And he's not alone in that." She added, while she was trying to keep up with his hasty pace. "Why are you walking so fast? You're not even the one who's actually hungry." She was still half-running behind him, seriously concerned about his mental health status. "Are you okay? Maybe you should slow down a little bit.. for both of our sakes." She breathed, slightly panting now. Suddenly she felt his hand on her arm, for the second time in the past five minutes, and she was yanked into a deserted alleyway. Her body was slammed into the wall behind her, though Booth made sure he didn't actually hurt her. But even if he had hurt her, she probably wouldn't have noticed, since Booth was passionately kissing her. He pulled away after a few seconds and was met by Brennan's questioning look. "Because I would've killed someone if I'd had to wait one more second to do that." he explained. Brennan was staring at him, speechlessly and flushed. It took her a few seconds to regain control over herself.

"Okay.. no matter how much I'd like to go home right now with you and do that again, I'm starting to get réally hungry. Diner or takeout?" she asked.

"Diner." He said quickly.

"I thought you so desperately wanted to order takeout."

"That was only to get rid of Sweets. And just so you know, the diner is closer, which means we'll be done sooner.." He said with a mischievous undertone.

She grinned disapprovingly and muttered something that sounded a lot like 'men..', though she didn't seem to mean it very negatively.

They were about to enter the diner when Brennan stopped dead in her tracks.

"Oh no."

Booth, who had already placed his hand on the door handle, turned around to ask what was wrong when he spotted an all too familiar person sitting at one of the tables.

"Sweets." Brennan said, pointing towards the person.

Suddenly, as if he had heard his name through the door and the sound of all the talking people, Sweets looked up at the entrance. He saw the terrified couple standing behind the door and waved at them, broadly smiling.

"We can still run and pretend it wasn't us, right?" Booth asked desperately.

"I.. wouldn't count on it." Brennan said as she saw their therapist standing up and walking towards them. "Let's just go in, pretend nothing's going on, shovel our food down as fast as we can and get out of there, okay?" She said.

Booth agreed, took a deep breath and opened the door. Sweets quickly walked towards them, still happily smiling.

"Hey guys! What are you doing here? I thought you were going to get some takeout."

"Eh, well, we were, but then we walked past the diner and since Bones was so hungry we decided to just eat here." Booth said, hoping Sweets hadn't noticed the slight pause he had needed to come up with his explanation.

"Alright, I was just about to order, why don't you join me?" Sweets said with his typical sheepish grin.

Brennan sighed, though she had expected that he'd do this. "Sure. Why not?" She said, trying to sound happy despite the fact that she knew her sigh had probably given her true emotion away.

They ordered their food and ate it in silence, while Booth and Brennan tried not to glance in each other's direction, as Sweets hadn't stopped studying them since they'd sat down. Finally Booth couldn't take it anymore. He dropped his fork onto his plate, which caused it to drop onto the table and from the table to the floor, but he didn't care about that at the moment.

"What is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean, agent Booth?"

"You can't seem to quit staring at us. That's what I mean."

"He's right, Sweets. Though you pretended to concentrate on your food, anyone could see your eyes looking towards us every other second." Brennan added.

"It's just, I have the feeling that something is going on between you two that wasn't there before. I'd like to talk about you with this."

There was no answer from Booth or Brennan. However, Sweets had learned not to be discouraged by their silence and continued unaffectedly.

"Has anything significant changed in your partnership over the past few days?" He asked.

"Why would you think so?" Brennan asked, trying to sound casual. Which, of course, failed miserably.

"You seemed kind of rushed in the elevator this morning, for no apparent reason."

"I was hungry. I wanted to eat. That's normal, right?" Brennan answered.

"Yes, but you weren't the one dragging your partner out of the elevator. And agent Booth here doesn't seem too hungry, judging from the amount of food left on his plate." Brennan glanced at Booth's plate, which was indeed barely eaten from.

"He was just.. concerned for my well being. Which he should be, since I tend to forget basic necessities, like eating and sleeping." Sweets was getting closer and closer to finding a hole in their explanation, and he knew it. And Booth and Brennan knew that he knew it. And they had to stop it.

Brennan quickly stuffed the last bit of food into her mouth and feverishly chewed on it. Sweets was about to ask his next question when she shoved her chair back and stood up.

"You know, I just remembered that Booth and I really need to finish our paperwork on that last case we did last week. We should go. Right now."

She tugged at Booth's arm and he also stood up, not paying any attention to the food left on his plate or the fork lying on the floor. Brennan picked up her purse, left a few bills on the table and made her way to the isle. "I'm sorry Sweets, we'll finish our conversation later, okay? Bye!" With that she walked out of the diner, Booth following directly behind her. For the second time this day, Sweets found himself alone, stunned, and even surer something was going on. And he wanted to know what it was.

**Yay! I got 40 reviews :D *is happy*. You know what would make me even happier? ****More**** reviews. :P I hope you liked this chapter :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: This is my longest chapter ever, and probably also the soonest uploaded after the last :P However, you shouldn't get too used to this.. I just had a lot of time, which will probably change next week ****:( Anyway, I hope you like it!**

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As soon as they were around the corner, Brennan started laughing.

"We're really bad at hiding things, aren't we?" She said between giggles. Booth hadn't seen her laughing like this since he'd suggested that a skeleton had been wrapped in a carpet, almost a year and a half ago. He still regretted that they'd never really gotten to investigate that case, since only moments later Caroline had arrived with the news that they couldn't work together until Max's trial was over. His mind was pulled back to the present with another fit of Brennan's giggles. It still seemed as completely un-Brennan-like as last time, but he found that he was glad to see her so happy. However, he wasn't so glad with the reason of Brennan's laughter, since after that disastrous conversation in the diner they would probably also have to tell Sweets. And if Angela ánd Sweets knew, it wouldn't take that long for the rest of the world to find out too. But at the moment, he couldn't care less. Seeing his girlfriend, though he told himself to never actually call her that, since he was pretty sure she wouldn't like the term, hysterically giggling like that was enough to get him to start laughing too. After a few minutes of laughter, and a few strange looks from people walking by, he managed to control himself and say that it actually wasn't that funny. She stopped laughing for a moment and looked him in the eye. Their seriousness lasted for about 2 seconds, after which they started laughing again. It took another full five minutes for them to regain any sort of control of themselves.

"I'm sorry, it really wasn't that funny.. it was actually kind of stupid. We should've thought of the possibility that we'd run into Sweets sooner than we'd like to. Now we're never going to get him to stop talking about this." Brennan said while she was trying to take her first few normal breaths in about 10 minutes.

"Maybe we should just tell everyone. I mean, they're going to find out eventually. And I think they would like it better if we were the ones to tell them, rather than hearing it through someone else." He said, leaning against a wall that looked like it was the only thing keeping him standing up.

This comment wiped all traces of a smile from Brennan's face. Suddenly her gaze was completely serious.

"Eh, you know, maybe we shouldn't." He quickly added in an attempt to undo whatever damage he just did. It didn't help very much. Brennan kept staring at an invisible point somewhere in mid-air. She couldn't believe he'd just said that. She'd known that he wasn't someone who'd like to keep a relationship secret for years, but she hadn't expected him to want to let everyone know so soon. They hadn't even been 'together' for 24 hours! He could at least wait for a few months, right? Until they were completely sure that this wasn't just something that turned out to be a huge mistake. Though she certainly didn't think of it as a mistake right now, she couldn't be entirely sure about how it would be in a couple of months. Suddenly she heard Booth saying her name and she realized he was probably getting worried about her, so she focused on his face and remained semi-casual.

"Let's just go back to the FBI building, okay? There is some actual paperwork you should be working on. I'll just drive to the lab from there. Some old French remains just got in and I've been waiting for them for weeks." Her casual tone sounded a lot more like a cold one, and that was the way Booth interpreted it, though he could tell from the look on her face that she hadn't intended it like that.

"Sure, that sounds good… reasonable. Let's go." He said, deciding to go along with her it-never-happened attitude.

They walked back to the building in silence, and because he could still just feel the awkwardness she was sending towards him he didn't ask her to stay with him, though he was sure her company would make the boring paperwork a whole lot more pleasant. At least if she was in a good mood, which she obviously wasn't even close to, he concluded after a quick glance towards her.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow?" He stated it more as a question than a statement.

"Yeah.. maybe. Bye." She said, and she started walking towards her car. Booth had to resist the urge to call her back and try to talk to her, but he knew he shouldn't rush her. It would just send her running in the opposite direction. Nevertheless, this knowledge didn't stop his heart from feeling torn apart as he watched her walk away.

A few hours later, he had to admit that her not being here probably increased his concentration. He had finished all the paperwork that had been lying on his desk for days, weeks even. He'd do anything as long as he wouldn't have to think about Brennan and what was going to happen between them. As much as he wanted to believe that she loved him too much to just pretend she didn't, he knew Bones was extremely good at stuffing emotions away. Suddenly he heard a knock, and he looked up to see the last person he was expecting standing in front of his door. He frowned for a moment, and then signaled for Brennan's best friend to come in.

"What are you doing here? Is Bones alright?" He asked, worry seeping into his voice.

"Yeah, she's fine. Well, not completely, which is why I'm here. She insists that she's feeling perfectly happy, but she actually seemed quite upset." Angela said, looking like she wasn't sure coming to him had been the right decision. "I was wondering if you had anything to do with it?"

Booth sighed. He briefly considered telling her he had no idea, but then decided that if anyone could help him, it was probably her. "It's most likely my fault. I accidentally said it might be best if we just told everyone we were a couple and then she sort of freaked out."

Angela suppressed a squeal at Booth's use of the word 'couple' to describe Brennan and him and forced herself to concentrate on the fact that Booth obviously wasn't sure that they would remain a couple for a very long time. She couldn't believe that after all these years either of them still doubted that they belonged together.

"She'll get over it. She just needs some time to get used to the fact that you're now someone who can leave her not just in a professional way. She likes to keep people at distance because she has convinced herself that it's necessary, since everyone will abandon her at some point. It took her a while to let me in too. But it'll probably go a lot faster with you because she's already known you for such a long time. She already trusts you." Angela said, feeling sorry for Booth. She could still remember the feeling she'd had so many years ago.

Though what Angela said confirmed what Booth had actually already known, he felt comforted by her belief in the fact that Brennan would get over it and let him in.

"Well, I should get back before Brennan notices I'm gone and starts asking where I went. Just give her some time, okay?" Angela picked up the coat she'd put on a chair next to Booth's door and was about to leave when she heard Booth talking again.

"Just let me know if she starts to get really upset, or something like that." Angela turned around to face Booth, and when she saw his expression she decided that he and Brennan were even more perfect for each other than she'd ever hoped to imagine.

"I will." She said and walked out of his office.

It was almost midnight, but Brennan was still in the lab, intently studying the remains laid out on the table in front of her. She knew that she should be getting some sleep if she wanted to be of any use tomorrow, but she couldn't bring herself to do anything besides looking at the corpse. She had noticed that Angela had left for about half an hour a while ago, but she decided not to bring it up. She assumed her best friend had noticed she wasn't as fine as she said she was and had went to talk to the most likely reason behind it. Angela had left again at 6 o'clock, along with most of the other employees. Brennan had been the only one left in the lab for hours. With a sigh she came to the conclusion there wasn't a lot more she could do with the remains right now. She unbuttoned her lab coat and stuffed it away somewhere, too tired to care.

She got into her car and started driving to what she thought was her apartment, but after a while she found that she had subconsciously driven towards Booth's place. She was about to turn around and drive back when she noticed that his lights were still on. Through the thin curtains she could see his silhouette sitting on the couch with what looked like a bottle of wine on the table. She felt a sting in her chest and decided to just park her car and go see Booth.

It took almost two minutes of knocking on the door before Booth got up and opened the door. When he finally did open, he was clearly surprised to see her.

"Sorry, about earlier. I just.. I just need some time, okay?"

Booth stared at her for a moment and then grinned.

"Time and space?"

She grinned too, remembering the time when she had asked him that exact question.

"Just time." She said, and walked in.

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**More chapters? Longer chapters? Review! :D :P**


	9. Chapter 9

**Sorry, again, for making you wait for a week. But I kind of only have time to write in the weekend ****:( Anyway, I hope you like this chapter :)**

**Disclaimer: No, I still don't own Bones. *sigh***

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Brennan slowly opened her eyes and blinked a few times. She tried to roll over but found that she couldn't, since someone's arms were tightly wrapped around her. She blinked a few more times and tried to remember when, where, and with who she had fallen asleep. She looked at the arm around her waist and immediately recognized the familiar tattoo on Booth's wrist. She relaxed and let her head fall back against the pillow. Her sleepy mind was slowly beginning to work again, and she recalled walking into Booth's apartment the night before. They had talked for about a minute when she'd started yawning and he'd offered her to stay over. She had collapsed on his bed, still dressed in her work clothes, and had almost instantaneously drifted off. She had no memory of Booth crawling in, and she might have resisted if he'd asked, but now she was glad he didn't. The feeling of his arms around her made her feel safer than she ever had. She looked around the room, trying not to move too much so she wouldn't wake Booth. The only light was coming from a few rays of sunshine that had managed their way around the curtains, which made it impossible to really distinguish any details, but she could get a basic image of the room. The king-size bed was positioned in the middle, and there were a few closets against the walls, but not much in the form of decorative furniture. She guessed he had meant it when he'd said he spent his money on food and rent. Not having much more to look at, she nestled herself further into Booth's chest and closed her eyes again. Her mind made the sleepy announcement that she should be going to work, but she momentarily didn't care and let herself fall asleep again.

It was only a couple of minutes after Brennan had drifted off again that Booth woke up. He lay there quietly for a while, enjoying the feel of his partner in his arms. He softly stroked her face, occasionally pressing kisses against the top of her head. After half an hour, just as he was beginning to doze off again, she stirred and opened her eyes.

"Hey" She said, sleepily struggling against his arms while trying to turn around.

He loosened his grip on her and she rolled over, now facing him, making him unable to resist the temptation to plant a quick kiss on her lips.

"Hey to you too," he whispered.

Brennan rubbed her eyes and sat up.

"What time is it?"

"No idea.." He said hazily and he pulled his blankets up further, not intending to get up anytime soon.

"Don't you have a clock or something around here?"

"Don't you have a watch?"

She considered making a snappy comment in return for a moment, but then just sighed at the sight of Booth lying face down on the pillow. She looked at her wrist, which was empty. She removed her other wrist from under the blanket, but couldn't find her watch there either.

"Eh, Booth? Do you know where my watch is? I can't remember taking it off but it's not on my wrist."

"Wook n dniwgtstenh." He grumbled.

"What?"

"Wook. On. Dh. Niwgtstenh."

"Are you suggesting that I should look on the nightstand?"

"Wes."

"Are you always like this in the morning?"

"Hmm-hmm."

She suppressed another sigh and turned towards the nightstand. Apparently she had taken the time to take it off, since her watch was lying right next to her. She picked it up and tried to discern the time. About a second later she jumped off the bed and nudged her lazy partner.

"Booth! It's eleven thirty! Don't you have an alarm clock? I'm surprised you ever get at work on time if you don't even have the energy to extend your arm to pick up a watch!"

No answer.

"Booth?" She poked him again.

"Boohooth?" A few more pokes.

With another disapproving sigh she grabbed the blankets and yanked at them, leaving Booth in the cold. Startled, he woke again and bewilderedly looked around.

"Bones, what did you do that for?" He whined, pouting.

"We need to get to work. Now. Actually, we needed to get to work more than three hours ago, but since there's nothing we can do about that now we should just get there as soon as possible. I'm going back to my place to get changed, since I can't show up at the lab in yesterday's clothes, okay? I'll call you later today, maybe we can have lunch at the diner together. Bye!" She grabbed her bag, coat, and walked out the door, leaving a sleepy, confused Booth behind freezing in his blanket-less bed.

___________

Angela looked up from her desk as she saw a person in lab coat walking past her office. She quickly stood up, almost knocking her chair over, and rushed after her best friend.

"Sweetie.." she started, as she walked into Brennan's office. Brennan slightly jumped at the unexpected greeting and then turned around, expecting the rest of Angela's sentence.

"..why are you late? You're never late.. except for that time when you were being 'strictly professional' with that Michael Stires guy.." At this sudden realization, Angela's mouth went from closed to O-formed to a huge sheepish grin.

"Did you and Booth _finally_ sleep together?"

"If you mean sleep in the actual definition of sleeping, as in resting, yes. If you are implying otherwise, no."

"So, then why are you late?"

"Because I did stay at Booth's place, but that was just because I was too tired to drive back to my own apartment. And apparently, Booth is under the illusion that he doesn't need an alarm clock, which he obviously does."

Though not completely satisfied with Brennan's description of last night's events, Angela was at least happy that they seemed to have worked out their problem. For now.

"Okay, and just so you know, you look a lot better today than you did yesterday." She said, turning around and making her way out of Brennan's office.

"I was just fine yesterday!" ,Brennan said, yet again trying to convince her friend.

"Sure, Sweetie, sure."

A few hours later, Brennan couldn't help but start to get angry with people for not dying. She hadn't had a case since the Grave Digger thing, and though she hated to admit it, working in the field with Booth was slightly more 'fun' than staring at old remains for hours. She tried to keep herself from glancing at the clock on the wall for the fourteenth time in the last few minutes, knowing that looking at it again wouldn't make it go any faster. It still had to be at least an hour before it was an appropriate time to call Booth for lunch. Damn him for taking her out into the field in the first place. Before that she'd never had any problems with staying in the lab for weeks without being bored. She knew it was actually her fault, since she had blackmailed Booth into taking her with him, but she told herself that he could've stopped her, though deep inside she knew that he couldn't have. Suddenly she heard her phone ring, and she quickly took of her gloves.

"Brennan."

"Hey Bones! We have a case.."

"Finally!" She shouted out, a little overenthusiastic.

"Ahw. Did you miss me already?" he mocked.

"No..it's just that these old remains are starting to get a little boring." She admitted reluctantly.

"Hehe. Thought I'd never hear you say that. I'll pick you up in five."

"Okay, bye Booth."

"Bye."

She clapped her phone shut and unbuttoned her lab coat. Booth's car appeared in front of the entrance five minutes later and she eagerly climbed into the passengers seat.

"So, where was the body found?" She asked immediately. Booth looked slightly offended at her question, though she had no idea why.

"Are you really more interested in dead bodies than in seeing me?"  
"Of course." She said instinctively. However, looking at Booth made her feel the sudden urge to explain herself. "Well, I mean, it depends on the kind of dead body. I'm rather here with you in this car than back at the lab with that old French guy."

Booth snorted at Brennan's use of the word 'guy' to describe her previously so precious remains. Still feigning to be offended, he switched to talking about the crime scene.

"From what I've heard, there is no flesh left at all, and the bones were found in a cardboard box in the trunk of an abandoned car."

"Hm. Sounds interesting. Do you know who the car was registered to?"

"The FBI is tracking the owner down right now."

Booth's car pulled up at the side of the road, from where Brennan could spot a car behind a bunch of trees.

The examination of the remains had been short. Because of the absence of flesh it was easy to see that the victim was a female in her late twenties, early thirties. The whole car was going to be sent to the Jeffersonian for further examination, and Brennan hoped that maybe they'd get lucky and find something to ID the woman, since the only bones that were missing seemed to be the teeth. She and Booth climbed back into his car, and when she looked at her watch she was pleased to find that it was finally a decent time for lunch.

"Do you want to go to the diner, get something to eat?" She asked casually.

"Sure." He answered. It was silent for a while, though not their usual comfortable silence.

"Did anyone notice that you were late?" He asked after a few minutes, trying to break through the awkward silence.

"Just Angela, of course. She asked if we had 'finally' slept together, though I don't think she meant actually sleeping."

"Hm. I don't get how you can stand it.. she must have been doing that for years."

"She only makes about two comments a day. You get used to it." She answered seriously.

"Did you ever even get to work? You didn't look very promising when I left this morning." She asked in return.

"Not really." He said, slightly embarrassed. Brennan looked questioningly at him.

"What do you mean, not really?".

"I tried to get up, but then I ended up just picking up the blankets and lying down again. I woke up when the Bureau called me in for the crime scene." He said, staring at the road. He heard her stifle a giggle, but stubbornly refused to look at her.

They drove the rest of the way mostly in silence, until they got to the diner.

They sat down at their usual table next to the window and were about to order when Booth suddenly saw someone from the corner of his eye.

"Oh no. Bones, get down, now!" he yelled suddenly, startling Brennan. She quickly recovered and did as he said, looking at him confusedly from under the table.

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**Forgive me for my miserable attempt at a cliffhanger, I'm just trying to find a new way to get more reviews :P *evil grin*.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hm. This cliffhanger thing really works :) Twelve reviews for the last chapter :D Sorry I didn't reply to them personally, I haven't had a lot of time lately.. but just so you know, I really do appreciate all of them! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Except the DVD boxes. :)**

**__________________________________________________________________**

Since Brennan didn't hear any gunshots or explosions, and couldn't come up with another reason Booth had ordered her to get down, she slowly started to get up.  
As soon as Booth realized what she was doing, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back under the table.

"Booth, what are you doing?"

"It's Sweets. And Gordon Gordon," he said, shivering at the thought of what would've happened if the two therapists had spotted them. Dealing with Sweets was bad enough already, they didn't need another shrink interrogating them. Definitely not at the same time, since their only advantage with Sweets was that they outnumbered him.

"How long are we going to hide here?" Brennan asked.

"As long as it takes for us to be completely sure they're gone."

"How long will that take?"

"I don't know."

"So are you going to stay down here until what, closing time?"

"Of course not."

"But you just said you're going to hide here until you're sure they're gone, and then you said you have no idea when that'll be, so wouldn't that mean you'd have to stay here forever?"

"Bones, stop whining like a four-year-old."

"I'm not whining. And I'm not a four-year-old."

"I never said you were a four-year-old, only that you were whining like one."

"I wasn't whining."

"Ugh." He sighed. This was pointless.

"I think we can get up now," she said.

"Why do you think that?"

"Because they're standing next to us."

Booth turned his head to the side. Shit. She was right.  
Next to their table he saw the legs of what could only be the people he definitely did not want to see right now.

"Maybe they're just looking for a table, maybe they haven't noticed us," he whispered, knowing that that scenario wasn't very likely. But for once, they suddenly seemed to have a little good luck, since the two pairs of legs started to move and walked towards the other end of the diner. He sighed again, this time with relief.

"They're gone," Brennan whispered incredulously.

"I know. Now, how are we going to get out of here?" Booth slowly peeked around the foot of the table in an attempt to locate the shrinks. Unfortunately, he could see them clearly, meaning they only had to turn their head to spot them.

"Maybe we can crawl to the exit?" Brennan suggested.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Are you serious?"

"Yes, why shouldn't I be?"

"Well, I'm not sure about you, but I have never seen someone _crawl_ out of a restaurant."

"Hm." She seemed to consider that for a moment.

"We can just run," she proposed after a minute.

"And we'll look like criminals and they'll come after us. What a great idea."

She noted the hint of sarcasm in his voice. Well, even she could tell 'hint' was an understatement. "Do you have a better idea?" She asked, irritated.

He thought for a while. "Just inconspicuously walk out?"

"You mean, after we 'inconspicuously' crawl out from under the table?" She asked sarcastically.

"Well, what do you want to do? Wait here until they're gone and hope no one notices the two persons hiding under the table?" He said, also starting to get irritated.

"I'd still go with the crawling," she answered seriously.

"Fine. You crawl, I walk, and we'll see who gets the furthest."

"That's just ridiculous, Booth."

He snorted. "Really?" He said, raising his eyebrows.

Brennan glared at him. His eyebrows quickly fell back into place.

"Maybe we should go with the walking. If they see us, we'll just ignore them and deny it was us," she finally suggested.

He started to form a smile at her surrender, but another one of her evil glares quickly dissolved it.

"Okay," he took a deep breath, "let's go."

They worked their way up from under the table, trying to keep their heads down as much as possible. Brennan snagged her bag and they stood up, walking rapidly towards the exit.  
Booth yanked the door open, practically pushed Brennan through it and quickly closed it behind him.

"Do you think they saw us?" She asked after a few blocks.

"Nah. Sweets would've said something if he noticed us, and if he didn't have the time to do that, he also didn't have the time to be sure it was us."

"So, what now?"

"You still hungry?"

"Yes..I'm actually feeling the need to eat pizza. A lot of pizza."

"Pizza? You never eat pizza. Definitely not for lunch."

"I'm doing a lot of things I never used to do before, lately." She smiled at him.

He grinned. "Okay, pizza it is. As long as you don't make me eat a vegetarian one."

"You should just try one. Vegetarian ones would be a lot better for your health than those fat-filled murderous things."

"Murderous? Come on Bones, there's no need to insult my food."

"You can call it whatever you want, but to me, it's murder."

"What's the problem? The animal's already dead, what does it matter if I eat it or someone else does?"

"Booth! That's the most ridiculous, clichéd, non-true excuse, and you know it."

He sighed. "Okay, I know…" Brennan looked pleased with herself. "..but I'm still not eating a pizza with only vegetables on it," he finished his sentence, pretending to shudder at the thought and effectively wiping the smile from Brennan's face.

"Come on, I know a place that's not too far away," he said.  
"Do they have vegetarian pizzas?"

"I guess.."

"Booth!"

"Okay, okay. They do." They started walking towards the pizza place. Booth hesitated for a moment, and then took her hand in his. She looked at him, slightly surprised.

"What if someone sees us?" She asked concernedly.

"They won't."

She opened her mouth to argue, but snapped it shut again at the last moment.

He smiled and gently squeezed her hand, putting a smile on her face too.

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**I know, I know, it's short. Please don't kill me. I promise to (try to) update again this weekend.. if I feel sufficiently encouraged by your reviews :) *grins***


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Hi :D This chapter is a little longer again, and it's a little case-centered, sorry if you don't like that, but well, they can't just quit their jobs to do couple-y stuff all day :P I hope you like it! **

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They were sitting at one of the tables next to the window, the sunlight streaming onto their plates and faces. Brennan's plate carried a half-eaten pizza with champignons and paprika, while on Booth's there was only one piece left, with what Brennan found a scandalous amount of meat. However, Booth didn't seem to mind, as he took another huge bite out of his last piece. Slightly disgusted, Brennan took a last bite of hers and definitively dropped her fork and knife on her plate. She sipped at her diet coke while Booth shoved down the rest of his pizza.

"We should get back to the lab, Mr. Nigel-Murray is probably almost done with his preliminary exam of the bones by now, and maybe Angela already made a sketch," she suggested.

"Maybe we should wait a while.. I'm not sure I can move after eating that whole thing."

"Then you shouldn't eat so fast."

"I don't, you're just incredibly slow!"

Not wanting to engage in a 'yes you do'-'no I don't' argument, she pushed her chair back, dropped the right amount of bills on the table and yanked at Booth's arm.

"Let's go."

He sighed deeply and seemed to consider resisting for a moment, but finally gave up at another impatient tug at his arm and also stood up.

By the time they got to the lab, Vincent was indeed done with his examination of the bones. He hadn't found a clear cause of dead, and no distinctive anomalies that could help to ID the victim. There was no good news from Hodgins either, since there had been no insect activity. The victim could've died days or decades ago, they had no idea. The bones had been cooked to remove the flesh, and Hodgins was trying to define what kind of water had been used. Hoping for at least some good news, Brennan continued her way to Angela's office.

"Did you find a match in the missing person's database?" She asked as soon as she had set foot in her best friend's office.

"Hi to you too. And no, but the computer is still searching," Angela said, looking slightly offended at her friend's greeting for a few seconds. Then Booth entered her office, and the annoyance was replaced with a smile.

"Where have you two been?"

"Lunch, Angela, just lunch," Brennan said, silencing her friend with an unfriendly look.

"Pizza," Booth added.

Before Angela could ask any more questions, her computer made a beeping sound, indicating the search was finished. She twirled her desk chair around and looked at the results.

"No match."

"So we have nothing?" Booth asked exasperatedly.

"Did you track down the owner of the car yet?"

"The bureau said they'd call me if they did, and I haven't heard anything yet, so I'm guessing not." The last words hadn't left his lips or he felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket.

"Booth," he picked up.

Brennan could vaguely hear a voice on the other end of the line, but it wasn't understandable, so she sank down on Angela's couch and thought everything through. They had no idea when the victim had died, when, or how. She hoped knowing who owned the car might help, but prepared on staying up all night examining every bone carefully.

Booth clapped his phone shut and hesitated a moment between facing Angela or Brennan, since they were now on opposite sides of the room. He finally settled on Brennan and repeated the information he had just been given.

"The owner of the car is Charlie Nelson, age 82."

Angela snorted. "You think he's the killer?"

"I don't think so." Booth answered.

"Let's not jump to conclusions. So far we only know that the bones were boiled, and I'm pretty sure Mr. Nelson has access to water and heat, so we can't rule him out just because he's elderly," Brennan quickly said.

"Okay, so why don't we go check Gramps out?" Booth said, grinning.

Brennan pushed herself off the couch and followed Booth out of Angela's office.

Angela stared at them for a moment as she watched them making their way out of the building, silently happy that nothing seemed to have changed in their working relationship.

Booth's car pulled up at an old, remote house. It took them two hours to get there, as they constantly took the wrong turn. They walked up to the front door and rang the bell, the sound vaguely echoing through the empty halls behind it. There was no answer for almost two minutes, but just when they were about to head back to the car they heard someone shuffling towards the door. A few seconds later, the door opened and a wrinkled old man appeared.

"Can I help you?" He said, his voice sounding faint.

"Sir, we're here about your car.." Booth started to say when he was interrupted by the suddenly livid man, who was now not looking so fragile anymore.

"Did you finally find the bastard who took it? Did you arrest him? For how long is he going to jail? Did.."

"Sir, calm down, please. Yes, we found your car. May I ask how it was stolen?"

"He took my keys. The bastard took my keys. He broke into my house, and he took them."

"When was it stolen?" Brennan asked, though she was starting to get convinced that this man had nothing to do with the body they'd found.

"Almost three months ago. I immediately filed a report, but every time I asked if there was any news about my car you guys kept telling me there was nothing they could do. When do I get my car back?"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, there was.." Booth started to explain, but was again interrupted, this time by his partner.

"We found a body in the trunk of your car, a female, between 25 and 35 years old. Do you have any idea who this might be?"

The old man fainted.

A few hours later, they were back at the lab. After Charlie Nelson had lost consciousness, they had called 911, asking for an ambulance. It took the paramedics almost an hour to get to them, while all this time Brennan and Booth were trying to resuscitate the man, whose heart had apparently given up. After the paramedics had taken Charlie with them, they decided to just go back to the lab until they got any news.

Brennan was examining the bones one by one, while Booth was in her office checking out the report Charlie had filed when his car had been stolen. The report said pretty much the same as Charlie had told him; his car had been gone one morning, along with his keys. There were no signs of a forced entry into the house, and a note scribbled on the side said it was more likely the old man had forgotten to take his keys out of the lock when he had entered, and someone had just seen a chance and taken it.

Booth was about to see if Brennan had found something on the bones when her phone rang. He hesitated for a moment and then decided to pick it up.

"Dr. Brennan's office."

"Hello. I called to give dr. Brennan or Special Agent Booth information about the man that was brought into the hospital about an hour ago."

"You're talking to Booth."

"Oh, okay. I'm very sorry, but I have to say that Mr. Nelson didn't make it. He had a heart attack, there was nothing we could do. I'm very sorry for your loss."

Booth was silent for a minute.

"Sir?"

"Eh, yes, okay. Thanks for the call."

"Good afternoon."

"Yeah, bye." Booth put the phone back and stared ahead for a moment. The one person that might have any information about the case just died. He wondered if they were ever going to solve the case if they didn't ID the victim soon. After a few minutes he got up out of the chair and walked up to the platform to inform the rest.

"Bones?"

Brennan looked up from the remains in front of her, and carefully put the vertebra she was examining down on the table.

"Did you find anything in the report?" She asked, looking down at the bones again.

"No, but I just got a call from the hospital. Nelson died."

Brennan's head snapped up again. "What?"

"He had a heart attack, they said there was nothing they could do."

"Did they run a tox screen?"  
"He had a heart attack, why would they do that?"

"Maybe someone poisoned him. You know, so he wouldn't talk."

"Do you think he knew anything about the victim?"

"It's a possibility. And right now there's nothing else I can find. No bullet entrance or exit wounds, no fractures, no cuts or slash marks anywhere on the remains."

"You think she was poisoned too?"

"Well, she wasn't shot, battered, or strangled, and if she was stabbed, someone was very careful not to hit the bones. And there would be no way we're able to check for any toxins, since there's no soft tissue left." Brennan put down the bone she had picked up again and sighed.

"Hodgins didn't find anything specific in the water used for boiling the remains either, just common tap water. Maybe you should just go back to your office, there's no point in you being here. I'm just going to be examining these bones for the next hours."

Booth considered this for a moment and decided it was probably the best that he didn't distract Brennan, though he was sure there would be nothing interesting to do in his own office.

"Okay, and I'll call the hospital to ask them to run a tox screen, if they haven't already done that," he said, starting to walk towards the exit.

"Thanks," Brennan called after him, not bothering to look up from the table.

"Bye"

It was again around midnight when she finally put down the last bone, certain that there was nothing else she could discover from them. Though 'nothing else' wasn't exactly the right phrasing, since it suggested that she had found anything at all, which she hadn't. She took of her gloves and dumped them in the trash and shrugged off her lab coat. On the way home, she was trying to think of a way to prevent the case from staying unsolved, but couldn't come up with anything. Still lost in thoughts, she didn't notice anything strange when she walked into her apartment. It wasn't until she had put down her bag and hung up her coat when she noticed the chaos. Her whole living room had been turned upside down, and from what she could see, probably the other rooms too. She froze, her heart hammering in her chest. She reached into her pocket and speed-dialed Booth, her eyes constantly looking around, searching for any suspicious movements.

"Bones, why are you calling so late?" A sleepy Booth answered the phone.

"You need to come over. Right now."

**____________________________________________________________________**

**So, I kept my promise to update sooner than usually, y'all can thank me by reviewing :P I probably won't update for more than a week now, since I'm leaving on vacation this weekend.. but I'll try to post a new chapter as soon as I come back :) **


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: I'm back! :D And I still have a week of vacation, so I'll try to write a lot :)**

**I hope you like this one! :) **

**Disclaimer: Me not owning Bones. Me sad. :(**

**____________________________________________________________________**

"Huh, why? It's the middle of the night, you know?" Booth asked, rubbing his eyes.

"Just," he could hear Brennan's voice crack, "come over here, 'kay?"

Next thing he knew, he was listening to dead air. Shocked, but most of all worried, he put down his phone and started getting dressed. In a minute, he was out his door with a gun within reach.

Brennan was still standing in her hallway, the only movement she had made being putting her cell phone back in her pocket. She jumped slightly when she heard footsteps behind her but relaxed when she recognized Booth's familiar voice.

"Bones? Why is your door wide open?" He asked, panting after running up the stairs as fast as he could.

He walked into her apartment and stopped as he too noticed the mess.

"Oh my g.. Bones, are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm.. I'm fine. It was like this when I arrived, I haven't touched anything."

"Is something missing?"

"I don't know, my laptop is still here, as is my CD player, I haven't been to any of the other rooms."

"Do you think it was a coincidence?" He asked, though very well knowing her opinion on coincidences.

"Normal burglars would've taken my laptop, right?" She asked in return, sounding like a scared little girl.

His eyes, previously busy with scanning the room, refocused on her. His heart nearly broke at the sight of her standing there, looking so fragile. He quickly closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around here, the moment so similar yet so different to the time when they'd found the large pool of blood at the exact same spot.

"Booth, I'm fine, really," she said, faintly struggling against his embrace.

He didn't let go.

"Booth. You can stop now, I'm not scared."

He finally loosened his grip on her and looked at her face.

"Really." She emphasized one more time.

He reluctantly let her go and, after watching her for a few more moments, walked to the middle of her living room.  
"Do you keep anything valuable here that someone might have stolen?"

Brennan thought for a moment, mentally scanning her apartment.

"I keep my gun in a locked box in the closet over there," she said, pointing towards said closet, "I'll give you the key so you can see if it's still there, I'll go check my bedroom in the meantime." She searched her keys in her pocket and threw them at Booth, who caught them easily. He contemplated not letting her go into her bedroom on her own, but finally decided that if someone was planning on killing her, that person would've done it in the fifteen minutes before he'd arrived. While she walked towards her bedroom, he opened the closet and searched for the box. It was located in the bottom left corner, and he could immediately see that it hadn't been forced open. He opened it anyway, but as he'd suspected, the gun was still lying where it was supposed to be. Just when he was putting the box back, he heard Brennan softly calling out his name.

"Booth?"

Not bothering to answer, he quickly walked through the open door into her room. He saw her sitting on the bed, blankly staring at her nightstand.

"Is something missing?" He asked concernedly.

"They're gone."

"Who?"

"Brainy and Jasper."

Though he felt a sudden wave of happiness at the discovery that she had kept his presents so close to her and immediately noticed if they were gone, the feeling didn't last long as he realized what it meant. No sane burglar, if something like that existed, would take a brainysmurf and a pig with him. This wasn't an ordinary burglary; someone was trying to personally hurt her.

Not good.

He wondered if it had something to do with the case they were working on, or just someone holding a grudge against Brennan who had suddenly decided to take action. He sat next to her on the bed and she instantly rested her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her again and stroked her hair.

"It's going to be fine, Bones. We'll get a forensics team over here and they'll find prints or something else and we'll find out who did this, okay? And we'll get Brainy and Jasper back."

"You can't know that." She sniffed.

"I can always buy you new ones, Tempera.."  
"Don't call me Temperance." She snapped, suddenly not sounding sad anymore.

He turned his head towards her, surprised.

"Why not?"

"You only use it when something's going on. And it just sounds wrong, coming from you." She half-laughed, half-sniffed.

He grinned, realizing she was right as he imagined her calling him Seeley. It did indeed sound strange. Wrong, as she had put it.

Though everyone else would find it equally strange if they would keep calling each other by their last names if they'd ever get married.

It took a few moments before he realized what he'd just thought. Married. With Bones. He mentally slapped himself, telling himself he knew how she thought about marriage. It didn't make the uneasy feeling go away.

_Do you wánt to marry her?_

_-She doesn't._

_Do you?_

_-She doesn't._

_That's not what I'm asking._

_-Look, I don't know. It's too early._

_It's been four years, dude._

_-Don't call me dude._

_Whatever,_

_-Dude. _He finished his own mental sentence. Two Booth's inside his head laughed.

Judging from a strange glance Brennan shot towards him, not only mental Booth had grinned at the stupid joke.

"Sorry. We should get a forensics team over here," he changed topics.

"Yeah, we should," she sighed and got up, "can you call them?"

"Sure." He said, also standing up.

Booth grabbed his phone from his pocket and scrolled through his contacts, searching the right number. He had to suppress another grin as he suddenly realized that Brennan wasn't the only squint of which he used only the last name. Hodgins, for example, he would never call him 'Jack'. The other way around, he had never thought of Cam as 'dr. Saroyan' or of Zack as 'dr. Addy'. He couldn't hold back a snort at the thought of him calling Zack 'dr.'. Talk about something sounding wrong.

Finally arriving at the right name, he pressed the 'call' button and waited, a smile still on his face. It wouldn't stay there long.

**__________________________________________________________________**

**I know, sorrysorrysorry about the short chapter, I just felt like I had to upload a new one today and I'm not feeling very **_**inspirated**_** :( If you want to read more, you can always read my new oneshot :) (I know, I'm a bad person, I can't help it xD) fanfiction****.net/s/5033277/1/Dont_Ever_Die**

**And if you're a twilight fan, I recommend this fanfic, a friend of mine wrote it and she's getting depressed at its review-less-ness xD**

**/s/5031329/1/Storylines_Weve_Come_to_Care_About (they keep deleting part of the link, you can also just go to her profile: LiesX)  
**

**And, just so you know, reviewing this chapter will always help if you want a new one sooner :) xD *evilness***

**xx**


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Sorry it took me a week to update, I've been kind of busy with the one-shots I've been writing.. Anyway, here's the new chapter, I hope you like it! :D**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones. Or anything else I mention in this fanfic. *sigh***

**________________________________________________________________**

Three hours later, the forensics team had left the apartment. They hadn't found any usable prints in the apartment itself, and no signs of a forced entry anywhere. The security cameras that were pointed at the front door of the building showed two women with baseball caps masking their faces entering at 8 p.m. and leaving at 10 p.m. Hoping to find something unusual, the forensics team had searched the handle of the front door for prints, which were now being analyzed.

Brennan sat down on her couch and yawned, looking exhausted.

"What do we do now?" She asked Booth, who was leaning against her bedroom's doorframe.

"We can go to my place, try to get some sleep."

"Why not just stay here?"

He shot her an annoyed look.

She sighed. She should've known Booth would get all protective over her.

"I can't-" She started, but was abruptly cut off by Booth.

"I know you can't freak out every time somebody googles you, but this isn't somebody googling you, this is somebody _breaking into your apartment _and stealing things that-" he stopped, not sure how it would look if he naturally assumed that she cared about his presents.

"-mean a lot to me", she finished. She looked at Booth, her heart skipping a beat as she saw the smile that spread out over his face.

"Okay," she said, halfheartedly pushing herself up from the comfortable couch, "let's go then."

They drove in silence, both of them too tired to have a slightly intellectual conversation. Brennan had almost fallen asleep by the time they got to Booth's place, and briefly considered spending the night, or what was left of it, in the car. This thought was unceremoniously shaken out of her head when she almost fell out of the vehicle as Booth opened her door, apparently unaware of the fact that she had been leaning against it. Suddenly awake again, she straightened herself, unbuckled her seatbelt and stepped out of the car, murderously eyeing Booth.

He shot her an apologetic look, making her grumble. Normally she could handle a sleepless night, but she hadn't slept well in over a week and it was beginning to take a toll on her. And everyone around her.

A minute later, she collapsed on Booth's bed again, for the second time in the past days. The last thing she remembered before drifting off was telling herself not to make a habit out of it.

Exhausted as he was, Booth couldn't sleep. Most likely reason? The person next to him who couldn't stop rolling from one side of the bed to the other without any concern for obstacles, namely Booth, in her way. When he felt Brennan's arm hitting him in the face for the umpteenth time that night, he sighed deeply and climbed out of the bed. Just when he was putting on his slippers, preparing for a move to his couch, he heard his partner mumbling something. He turned around, expecting to see an angry, unwillingly awoken person. Instead, he saw Brennan with her eyes still tightly shut.

"Booth." He heard her mumble again, followed by something he couldn't hear. That was when he spotted the tear that had made its way through her eyelids, down her cheek. Her hand, once again, moved to the place where he'd been lying moments ago, this time colliding with his mattress instead of him. The hand moved a little to the right, then to the left.

"Booth?" The hand moved around the mattress some more. Finally seeing that she was looking for him, he quickly climbed back into the bed and wrapped his arms around her.

"It's okay, I'm here, it's okay." He repeated, though his eyes too got a little teary at the way he felt her hands clasping his shirt.

"It's okay." He said again, suddenly causing her eyes to open.

"Why are you-", she stopped as realization dawned on her. "Oh."

"I must've been having one of my nightmares again, it's nothing, you can let me go, I'm fine." She said, her hands contradicting her rambling as they refused to let go of Booth's shirt.

"Have you been having these nightmares often?" Booth asked concernedly.

"No."

He shot her a look, knowing it wasn't true.

"Since you got kidnapped." She mumbled.

"Every night?" He asked, shocked. He hadn't expected his being kidnapped to have such an effect on her. She didn't answer, just gripped his shirt even tighter and buried her face in his chest, preventing him from seeing her tears, but not from feeling them.

"But Bones, I'm fine." He tried to reassure her.

"Don't you get it? I didn't know that! I thought I was never going to see you again, I thought-" She started sobbing into his chest and felt his arms tighten around her.

He didn't say anything anymore, just stroked her hair and occasionally kissed the top of her head. After a while, he noticed that the sobs had slowly quieted, and a few minutes later he found himself listening to her even breathing. Finally, he allowed himself to close his eyes and get some rest.

The next morning, they both slept through Booth's newly purchased alarm clock, and weren't planning on waking up anytime soon until both their cell phones persistently kept ringing, forcing them to either keep listening to the profoundly annoying sound, or pick up. Booth considered adding a third option: smashing the phone, but eventually decided the call had to be important. Reluctantly, he eased himself out of Brennan's sleepy grip and crossed the room to get to his cell phone.

"Booth." He said, ineffectively trying to suppress a yawn.

"We found something unusual in the prints we got of the door handle." He heard a familiar voice say. It took his drowsy brain a few moments to place it as one of the forensic techs'.

"What did you find?"

He sensed the voice hesitating for a moment, and then continuing.

"We found the prints of Amanda and Heather Taffet."

"The Grave Digger?" Brennan's eyes shot to him, suddenly wide open.

"Yeah."

**_____________________________________________________________**

…

**Let me know what you think! :)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hi! I'm back :) I've been a little busy again with other fics, I just started a new one :P I'm sorry, this chapter is a little case-centered again.. but I hope you don't think of it as too boring! **

**Disclaimer: This gets annoying after 13 times. I still don't own Bones.**

**_________________________________________________________________**

Brennan stared at her partner, processing what he'd just said. She had only heard the 'what did you find', 'the Grave Digger?' part of the conversation, but she didn't need to hear the rest to understand what was going on. The Grave Digger had been at her apartment. She had taken Jasper and Brainy. She wanted to hurt her.

Booth clapped his phone shut and walked back to the bed where Brennan was sitting, blankly staring into the space in front of her. He started to put his arm around her in an attempt to comfort her, but as soon as his skin made contact with hers she winced and stood up.

"How?" Her voice trembled.

"They're trying to figure it out. The prison didn't report any of the prisoners missing." Booth said, trying to assess Brennan's mood. She obviously wasn't very happy, but neither was he.

"Let's go there and find out." She said decisively, walking towards the hall in her previous day's work clothes and _his_ slippers.

"Bones?"

She turned around.

"You might want to change shoes."

She looked at her feet, then back up. Her eyes narrowed, as if she was blaming Booth for the fact that she wasn't wearing proper footwear. Deciding doing something like that was far too irrational for her, she kicked off the slippers and stuffed her feet into the first pair of shoes she could find.

"Ready to go."

"Bones?" Booth asked for the second time that morning.

"Yes?" She looked at him expectantly. As he didn't elaborate, she took in his appearance and suddenly noticed that, unlike her, he _had_ taken the opportunity to slip into more comfortable sleeping clothes.

"Oh. Well, you go change, I'll wait by the car."

She was halfway out the door when she felt him grabbing her arm.

"You're not going anywhere alone, until we get that woman back behind bars, okay?"

She started to protest, causing Booth to quickly put his finger over her lips, silencing her.

"Okay?" He repeated.

She didn't answer for a few seconds, contemplating her next move. Giving up, she nodded.

He looked into her eyes for a few more seconds, judging if she wasn't going to run as soon as he let go of her. Finally satisfied, he released her arm and swiftly kissed her on the lips before disappearing into the bedroom.

Three minutes later, they were on their way. Brennan silently stared at the trees that were flashing by, and didn't look like she was going to stop doing so anytime soon. Occasionally Booth cast a glance towards her, making sure she was alright. Though she was physically fine, he suspected that she felt like this was her fault. She had opened up to him about one of her biggest fears, and the next thing she knew, the cause of all that fear was back. He was afraid she'd see it as a punishment, while it was just… bad luck. He wished he could do something about it, but another sideward glance told him he should probably give her a little more time.

They arrived at the prison half an hour later. The guard was a little hesitant about letting them have a conversation with 'Heather', obviously not too happy with the prospect of having to wake a serial killer. Or what he thought was a serial killer. Their story about his prisoner probably not being a murderer seemed to calm him down a little, and a few minutes later they were on their way to a room.

"_You_ are Heather Taffet?" Brennan asked incredulously when she saw the person waiting for them.

"I've been in prison for months. It does that to you." She answered.

Though Brennan had to admit the person had the exact same hair color and fit the overall profile, she was convinced it was not the woman she'd smacked with a briefcase half a year ago. She and Booth sat down on the other side of the table, the unknown woman eyeing them defiantly.

"You are not the Grave Digger." Brennan stated.

The woman didn't answer.

"You are obviously supposed to look like her, and a lot of people might not notice the difference, but your brow ridge is less prominent and you nasal aperture-"

"Bones?" Third time.

She turned towards him, her mouth still open.

"I think she gets the point."

Brennan closed her mouth.

Booth turned his attention towards the person on the other side of the table again, determined to find out where the actual Grave Digger was.

"Let me simplify this for you. You've got two options, either you talk now and we may be able to cut you a deal, or you wait, Heather Taffet kills again and you'll be prosecuted as an accessory to murder."

The woman laughed.

"I'm already in jail. How much worse can it get?"

"If you tell us everything you know now, we might get you out on parole. If you don't.. well, it depends. Have you ever been convicted for a crime before?"

The person across the table visibly swallowed. She looked around the room for support but only came across Brennan's cold eyes. She gave up.

"I..I was just walking on the streets one night, you know, around 2 a.m., when this woman came up to me and asked me if I'd like to earn a few thousand bucks. Of course, I was interested, and by the time I found out she wanted me to replace a murderer in prison she knew where I lived, she knew about my family, and she threatened to hurt them if I didn't follow through." A tear slowly crossed her cheek. "I didn't know what to do, you know?" Her eyes flashed from Booth to Brennan, hoping for some kind of pity.

"Do you have any idea where she is now?" Brennan asked icily. She knew she couldn't entirely blame the woman in front of her, but right now that was the only person she could direct her anger at.

"No, they just took off. The woman that spoke to me on the street that night somehow got the keys to Heather's handcuffs and we switched places during a visit. She must've sabotaged the security cameras too, no one noticed."

"So much for security." Booth muttered under his breath.

Brennan pushed her chair back and stood up, getting ready to leave.

"Thank you for your help, miss..?"

"Emma. Emma Page"

"We might be back soon with a sketch artist. Do you think you'll be able to describe the person who got you here?"

"Sure. She never told me her name, but I think she and Heather must be related. They looked a lot alike."

Booth shot Brennan a meaningful glance. She returned a slight smile. At least they knew who to look for.

**_____________________________________________________________**

**Is the case interesting enough? :) Let me know! **


	15. Chapter 15

**Okay, I get it. You guys don't like case-centered chapters. They always get less reviews xD So, I'll try to include as little case stuff as possible :P**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones, blabla. You know that by now.**

**_________________________________________________________________**

They were on their way to the lab, waiting in front of a traffic light when they saw Angela and Hodgins going in the opposite direction, towards the prison. Booth waved at them and grinned.

"They really want to catch these women, don't they? We just called them 10 minutes ago."

Brennan didn't see the humor.

"Are you suggesting you don't?"

Booth looked at her, surprised.

"What are you talking about? Of course I do."

"Good. Me too."

"Okay." He got that she wasn't feeling happy right now, but did she have to take it out on him? The traffic light turned green and they started moving again. A few moments later, he looked over at her, getting a sense of déjà vu. She was, once again, staring at the trees flashing by. Unconsciously, he pressed the gas pedal a little harder, determined to lock Heather Taffet and her sister up as soon as he could.

When they arrived at the lab, Cam and Vincent were looking at the security tapes from the prison. Three days ago, all of them had suddenly gone black. The problem had been dealt with in three minutes, but that was all the time it had taken for Heather and Emma to switch places.

"Okay, I'm thinking we should increase the security, have someone monitoring the security cameras at all times, and no one should go anywhere alone." Cam proposed.

"Hasn't she kidnapped more than one person before?" Vincent looked at the rest of the people in the room.

"The first victim was always alone, she just ran over the next one who got in her way." Booth told him, anger evident in his voice.

"Let's just agree that no one goes anywhere alone," Brennan quickly said, knowing that an angry Booth wouldn't be helpful in this situation, "In the meantime, how are we going to find them?"

"Their pictures are going to be posted in the newspapers, hoping someone might spot them. The videos in the prison's parking garage show the two of them driving away in a black Volvo, the plate number is being traced as we speak. Until we hear anything, it's best just to keep doing what we normally do." Cam answered, though she suspected neither of them would be happy with not being able to do anything specifically to catch the Grave Digger and her accomplice.

Brennan sighed and walked out of Cam's office, towards her own. Booth shot a hateful glance towards the women visible on the security tapes and then hurried to catch up with his partner.

A few moments later, Brennan was sitting in her office chair while Booth had positioned himself on her couch.

"So.. what do you normally do when I'm not here?" He asked, turning so he could lie down on the couch.

"Work on identifying old remains, you know that."

Booth let out an annoyed sigh. "You're not going to do that now, are you?"

"Why wouldn't I? And it's not like you have to be here to watch."  
"Didn't you hear what Cam said? You're not going anywhere alone."  
"Come on, Booth!" she said, irritated, "I'm in the lab!"

"Just like you were the last time she kidnapped you."

"I was in the garage, there's a difference."

"Maybe to Heather Taffet there isn't."

"She would never just walk in here."

"She just walked into your apartment."

"She didn't."

"Really?"

"She picked my lock," Brennan argued defensively, "and she can't simply pick a lock and walk in here, let alone drag my unconscious body out again."

Booth had to admit that she had a point. Not that it mattered, he was still not leaving her behind. He decided to try a different approach.

"Bones, why are you acting like this?"

She was taken aback by his sudden change in tone. "What do you mean?" She said, softer.

"You're pushing me out again, why? I thought we were.. you know, past this."

She contemplated playing dumb, saying she still didn't know what he meant. But to be honest, she knew he was right. If there was anyone she could open up to, it was him. Why was she feeling so reluctant to do so?

"I'm worried, okay. And not just about you, about Angela, about Hodgins, Cam, Vincent, everyone. She's out there again. The woman who buries people _alive_, Booth. And I just have to sit here and wait."

"I know, Bones. But putting yourself in danger will not help anyone."

"Really? What if we find something that might lead us to where they are now? What if I get a transmitter and you can track me when they're still with me? Wouldn't that be helpful?"

"You're not seriously considering letting yourself get kidnapped, are you?" Booth couldn't believe she'd think he'd ever let her do that.

"If it would help, why not?"

"That's the problem! You don't know if it would help, the stun gun might cause the transmitter to stop working and we might not find you. No way I'd take that risk."

"Would you be okay with it if we used someone else as bait?"

"What do you mean? Who?"

"Cam? Rebecca?" Brennan felt strangely hopeful.

"Just because I broke up with them doesn't mean I want them dead, Bones. I'd never leave Parker without a mother. And I thought you liked Cam."

"I do. I just really want those people locked up."

"Me too. But that doesn't mean I'd sacrifice someone else's life for it."

"I wouldn't suggest it if it would be sure that whoever got kidnapped died. We saved you, and me, and Hodgins. Why wouldn't we do it again this time?"

"I'm sure she learned from her mistakes. I don't think we'll get seagulls or text messages anymore. And I'm thinking that it would be a little suspicious if we just sent someone to the parking garage all alone."

"There must be something we can do!" Brennan got up from her chair and started pacing around the office.

"Sit down and wait." Booth said, earning an irritated look. She gave in and sat down on her couch, crushing his lower legs.

"Ouch! Those are my legs you're sitting on."

"I know." She replied calmly.

"Would you mind getting off them?" Passive aggressive.

She turned her head to look at him and smirked. In response, he pulled out his legs from underneath her, kicking them upwards in the process. Brennan let out a yelp as she flew up and landed on the floor.

"Booth!" she whined.

This time, he smirked at her.

As she got up from the floor, a slightly evil smile formed on her lips.

"Fine. I'm going back to my apartment, you can come with me if you're not too lazy to get off _my_ couch."

He had to admit, she was good. Reluctantly, he stood up and walked after her, happy he'd been able to make the mood a little lighter.

As they jokingly made their way to his car, neither of them heard the footsteps approaching behind them.

**______________________________________________________________**

**Da da da dumm… wanna know what happens next? Review! :D **

**And I feel like I should warn you that it might take me a little longer to update again, since I started a new multichapter postfinale fic, 'remember' :) You're free to read that one, though *hint, hint*.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! **

**x**


	16. Chapter 16

Yes, I know it's been more than two weeks since my last update. Yes, I'm sorry. Really. As I said at the end of the last chapter, I've been a little busy with the other fic I started, but I finished that one now :D So you can expect weekly updates again, I hope :)

**Well, anyway, here's the new chapter.. I hope you like it! :D**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Brennan. Or Booth. Or a submarine to put them in. *cries***

**_______________________________________________________________________**

His neck hurt. That was the first thought that came to him as he opened his eyes. That his whole body hurt, was the second. He blinked against the bright light and sat up.

"Oh, god. Not again." He heard himself say, the sound echoing through the empty space. From what he could see, he was again locked up in a submarine. This one was roomier, and brighter, but a submarine nonetheless. Standing up, he tested the walls. Three of them were made of solid metal, one was different. There was a black fabric in front of it, and something else, that he presumed was glass, behind it. He found a loose corner and pulled at it as hard as he could, ripping the fabric off easily. He'd been right about the glass. On the other side of it, he saw a person curled up in one of the corners between the metal and the glass, the face turned away from him. But he didn't need to see her face to know who the auburn hairs belonged to.

"Bones!" He yelled, kicking the glass with his left foot. The window didn't show any signs of weakness and he could hear his voice echoing back at him.

"Dammit." He cursed, kicking again. He was pacing around the little space he had when he felt the submarine turn. Unceremoniously thrown against the glass window, he realized he wasn't as lucky this time as he had been last. This submarine was not placed on a ship full of air, it was actually sub marine. They were under water. Running out of air.

"Temperance!" He yelled again, hoping that the sheer awkwardness of him calling her by her first name would wake her up. It didn't matter, as the submarine got hit by another wave and he had to watch helplessly as the movement threw Brennan against the metal wall, effectively awakening her. He saw her opening her eyes and quickly scrambling to her feet, taking in her surroundings. Her panicked expression relaxed slightly when she noticed him, and she started talking. In vain, of course. He could see her mouth move, but had no idea what words were coming out of it. He should've taken a lip reading class when he had the chance.

"I can't hear you!" He said, shaking his head as he pointed towards his ear.

She stopped and thought for a moment. She said something again, though only one word this time.

"What!?" He yelled, though he knew he shouldn't waste air on that. She got his intention, though, and repeated the word.

He shook his head again. She looked around, as if expecting paper and a pen to be lying somewhere near to here. Not finding it, she came up with an alternative.

She formed a 'C' with her fingers, then an 'A' and an 'N'.

He nodded.

She pointed at him, mouthing 'you'.

He nodded again. She was asking him something, apparently.

It went on like that for a while, both of them eventually getting better at making and recognizing letters.

He came to the conclusion that she was trying to ask him if he could break the glass. He said the question out loud, hoping she would be able to discern if he had understood her correctly. She nodded, and looked at him expectantly. He shook his head, lightly bumping his foot against the glass in an attempt to convince her. The expectant look didn't disappear as he had hoped.

"Try!" He saw her say.

He kicked against the glass more forcefully, still not getting a reaction of any kind. She gestured him to keep kicking. Annoyed, and with a increasingly hurting foot, he kicked again. And again, and again, and again. She wouldn't stop motioning for him to continue until he saw the slightest of cracks beginning to form. Encouraged by the possible prospect of being able to hear Brennan and maybe come up with a plan to get them out of here, he sat down on the ground and kicked his heel against the tiny crack. About half an hour later, he had chipped away a thin layer of glass. It was hours later when he finally reached the other side, and he immediately crouched down next to it, not paying attention to the tiny pieces of glass now pushing into his arm.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes, finally, Booth. How's your foot doing?"

"You don't sound happy to hear me."

"I'm stuck under water. I'm not in the mood to be happy, I want to get out of here, okay? Preferably before I die." She snapped.

He was silent for a moment, eventually deciding now was not the right time to argue with her.

"What do we do now?" He asked.

"You make the hole bigger."

"What?"

"One of us will have to be able to crawl through it. The chance we will manage to get out of here is already small, let alone we'll both be able to find our way out on our own half of this thing."

His rational side had to agree with her. His foot, however, did not. Ignoring the stabbing pain, he started kicking again. They had already lost hours, they might even be halfway through their air.

The hole was big enough for him to stuck his head through when they were suddenly both thrown against one of the walls. He expected a readjustment of the submarine within a few seconds, but the thing firmly stayed in its rotated position, completely still.

"What just happened?" He asked.

"I think.. I think we might have gotten stuck in shallow waters."

"Is that a good thing?"

"If by good, you mean us being closer to air, then yes. It's a good thing."

He looked at the small round window on his side, only seeing water.

"Can you see anything out of your window?" He asked, as hers was now higher than before their stranding. She got up and tried to get to the small circle, failing the first few times. The floor was close to a 45 degree angle, and didn't provide much to stand on. She succeeded eventually, keeping herself steady by placing one hand on the glass and the other one on the metal wall, stretching out and looking out the window.

"Booth! I see air!" She shouted happily. Not getting a response, she turned around.

"Booth?"

**_______________________________________________________________________**

**Okay, sorry for this cliffhanger-y thing. It has proven to be a successful way to get more reviews before, and I hope it will do so again xD Seriously, reviews are what inspires a writer to update more often :) Reviews make my day :)**

**xBJ**


	17. Chapter 17

**Great. Had a little accident with my bike.. I was on my way to school and the road was a little slippery because it was raining and I fell. *****sigh* Now I have a huge bobble on the side of my face and my glasses are ruined :( I hope I can still find the same ones somewhere.. Anyway, on the upside, now I don't have to go to school for the rest of the day and I can write :D And, I forgot to say this in my last A/N: The whole submarine getting stuck idea came from LiesX :) You wanna thank her for the great idea? Go read her fanfic and review it :P Okay, sorry for all this stuff, here's the new chapter! :D**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones. (sorry, too lazy to say anything slightly more original) xD**

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"Booth?"

"Booth!" She screamed as she saw him lying on the floor on the other side of the submarine. Blood was seeping out of his shoe and she saw his previously white-and-yellow-striped socks slowly soaking in a dark red substance. At hearing his name, he lifted his head a little bit and absently gazed at her.

"Wha shud I do, Boness?"

"Do NOT take of your shoe, okay? It's probably the only thing keeping the blood from spraying out of there right now. You probably got some pieces of glass in there while kicking. Just, lie still, and I'm going to try to get us out of here."

"Kay. G'luck wizthat." He answered before letting his head fall back against the floor.

She sat down on the floor, thinking of the best way to escape. It was hard enough for her to reach her window, let alone be able to kick through it. Booth's window was lower but it would take her too long to get to his side and even if she could do so in time the only thing she would accomplish would be getting water into the submarine and making it sink. "Dammit!". She had to try to loosen the window, maybe they were close to people and they would hear her scream. She worked her way up to the window with the same technique as she had used before and tried lifting her leg high enough to kick. She didn't even come halfway. Both her arms were needed to keep her steady, and bonking the glass with her head didn't seem like a good idea either. They were stuck and Booth was bleeding out. She didn't have anything on her, not even a watch. Maybe Angela and the squints hadn't even noticed they were gone yet, and even if they had, she doubted that the Grave Digger had left them a ransom message. This wasn't about money anymore, this was about killing the people that had gotten her locked up in jail. Brennan knew there was nothing she could do, but she couldn't stand the idea of just giving up. She looked around the small space again, finally pulling off her jacket, wrapping it around her hand and picking up one of the larger pieces of glass Booth had broken off. She climbed up to the window again, this time trying to steady her with only one arm and a leg. Gripping the shard as hard as she could, she threw her arm against the window. A small crack appeared in both the window and her shard. Though made for high pressure, the window was not prepared for inside attacks. She hit the glass again, making the crack bigger and at the same time causing the shard to crumble into tiny bits. She slid down again and picked up another piece of glass. She continued this routine until a small hole had formed in the window. She put her mouth over it and yelled for help as hard as she could. The only thing she could see was the sky, there was no way of telling where they were stranded. They could be practically next to a village, or hundreds of miles away from it. She picked up one of the last big pieces of glass and started thrusting it against the window again, hoping she could make it big enough to stick her head through. At least they had enough oxygen now, but a glance in Booth's direction told her that was not the thing they needed the most right now. His eyes were closed, but he still seemed to be breathing, at least.

"Booth? How are you doing?"

"I'm great, Boness. Jus focus on gedding us outta here.."

"How's your foot?"

"'t hurts. Bu's not that bad."

She could see it wouldn't be much longer until he'd pass out. The pool of blood around his foot was slowly but steadily getting larger and she doubted his shoe was applying anything even close to the right amount of pressure. She couldn't help but wonder if this was all her fault. What if she hadn't proposed the option of letting herself getting kidnapped on purpose? Was this the universe's payback? What if Booth didn't survive and she did? She'd gone through losing him too often and she didn't think she could handle it one more time. This couldn't be happening, not again. Suddenly having a rush of energy, she continued breaking the glass. A few minutes later she could stick her hand through it, another 30 minutes and it was almost big enough for her head. The shard in her hand broke again and it took her a while to find another one big enough to be of use.

"I'm almost done, Booth. I'll get us out of here, do you hear me?"

"Booth?"

He didn't answer. She asked again, harder. Still no response. Fear coursing through her, she stuck her trembling hand through the opening to his side and softly pushed against his injured foot.

"OUCH!"

"Oh, thank god, you're still alive." She let out the breath she'd been holding, not realizing the entirely irrational sentence that had escaped her.

"I was sleeping, Bones!"

"You didn't answer, I got worried! And at least you seem to have your sense of speech back."

"Pain can do that to you. Lemme rest."

"Fine." She snapped. She readjusted her jacket around her hand and climbed back up to the window. About fifteen minutes later, she'd chipped away the last piece of glass around the borders of the window. She tried to look out of it but her position didn't allow her to get high enough to do so. Hesitating for a moment, she decided to try to climb out of the submarine.

"Booth? I'm going to try to climb out of here and get you help, okay?"

"Sure, Bones." He answered, not bothering to open his eyes. She'd stuck one arm through the window when she suddenly heard him move. Surprised, she turned back around.

"You're going to try to get through _that_?!"

"Yes." She said, not getting his point.

"Look, Bones, I'm not saying you're fat, but seriously, would ányone fit through that?" His eyes incredulously looked at the small window.

"Can you think of a better option? I'll just try, maybe it does work."

"Go ahead.." He said unconvincingly.

Sighing, she turned around again. Her left arm went through the window, blindly searched for something to hold on to on the slippery outside of the submarine. After a few moments, her hand found something that seemed steady enough. Firmly gripping onto it, her other hand let go of the inside wall and went out the window as well. She hung there for a while, basically all her weight on the one arm that had found something to hold until her other hand found a similar object on the opposite side. Now hanging from two arms, she pulled her head through the window and wriggled her shoulders through it as well, hoping the loud cracks she heard in her back weren't anything too serious. Slightly more comfortable now, she looked around. Most of the surroundings were deserted, but there was one small farm not too far away, though she doubted the inhabitants could hear her. She looked down, only to find that her waist took up pretty much all the space there was to look inside.

"Can you still hear me?" She screamed down.

"Not really!" Was the muffled response.

"I told you I'd fit!" She yelled through the half inch of space there was around her body. Even in this situation, she couldn't let the opportunity to gloat about her being right go by.

"You're not out of here yet!"

"Hmpf." She pushed herself up with her arms, with the intent to prove that it wás possible to climb out of a submarine window. Instead, she got stuck. Shit. Maybe Booth _did_ have a point.

"You stuck?" He asked. She could hear the laughter in his voice.

"Yes!" She yelled back, angry.

"What? Really?" No laughter in his voice this time.

"Yeah! My hips don't fit!"

She heard him curse somewhere under her. She lifted herself up again, maybe another angle would work better. Her second attempt only managed to cause her more pain as a tiny piece of glass she'd missed punctured her skin.

"Ouch. Dammit, stupid window!"

It was silent for a moment, both of them thinking about their options. Booth was the first to speak again, though neither of them really had a plan.

"Is there anyone out there?"

"There's a farm not that far away, but I don't think they can hear me. Maybe it's not even being used!"

"Just.. keep looking in case someone comes out, okay?"

"I'm doing that already!"

"Okay, alright. Didn't mean to upset you."

She grumbled in response, though she was sure he wouldn't hear.

She hated this, waiting helplessly. Her arms had gone numb about an hour ago, not bothering to hurt anymore. Her nose itched but she couldn't get her face close enough to either of her hands and she didn't dare to let go, knowing there was no way she'd get back up if she fell down. It had started to get dark when she finally saw someone approaching the farm, the path towards it pretty close to the submarine.

"HELP!" She screamed, instinctively lifting both hands up to wave. Her action caused her shoulders to shift downwards a little bit, painfully stretching her armpits. She lowered her arms quickly, wincing as she moved the abused muscles. She yelled again, finally getting the man on the path to notice her. He looked at her for a moment, puzzled, then dropped the shopping bags he'd been carrying and quickly pulled out his cell phone, no doubt dialing 911. What seemed eons later, but what couldn't have been more than twenty minutes, firemen and police officers arrived with what she hoped was the right equipment to break the submarine open. People rushed towards her, asking about how she'd gotten there. She tried to explain it as good as possible without sounding like a person with an overactive imagination, though judging from the looks she got, she didn't entirely succeed.

"Is there anyone else in there?" One of the persons suddenly asked. Brennan stopped talking. Shit. She hadn't thought about Booth. How could she not have thought about Booth? She tried to remember the last time she'd asked him if he was okay, but had no idea if it had been minutes or hours since she'd heard him answer that he was fine.

"Eh, my partner, he's still in there. He was bleeding when I last saw him, I..I.. I don't know if he's okay, you have to get him out of there!"

"Is he conscious?"

"I don't know!" She panicked. What if he'd died? What if it was her fault?

"How badly is he injured?"

"His foot, there's glass in it, he was bleeding. He's been bleeding for hours, oh my god, what time is it?"

"Calm down, I'm sure he's just fine. We'll get you out of there as soon as we can."

"How do you know he's fine? You can't know that. It's not rational for you to say so! What kind of person are you? Do you really think giving me false hope is going to do any good? Just HURRY UP and get Booth out of there!"

**___________________________________________________________________**

**Okaay… this might be the longest chapter so far! Actually, I'm pretty sure it is xD. I hope it wasn't disappointing.. I'm planning on at least one more chapter, maybe two, but I'm not sure :) Pleeease lemme know if you liked it, I really appreciate all your comments :D**

**xBJ**

**p.s. I haven't had the time to reply to everyone yet, and I am planning on still doing so, but if for some reason I don't, just know that I really am grateful for your review! :)**


	18. Chapter 18

**Okay, here is another pretty long chapter :D And unfortunately, also the last one ****:( anyway, enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Bones. (Thank god this is the last time I have to say this, it's depressing xD).**

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"Is he going to be okay?"

It had been two hours since the firemen had arrived and they'd pulled an unconscious Booth out of the submarine, but she still hadn't gotten a proper answer to the question she'd been asking every few minutes. Brennan paced through the waiting room, harassing every nurse that crossed her path. Finally there was one that actually came from Booth's surgery and Brennan immediately overloaded her with questions. The answer was, as she'd suspected, not very clear.

"He's still in surgery and it's possible that he'll stay there for a while. If I were you I'd get some rest and we'll let you know how he's doing tomorrow."

"Can you at least tell me what's wrong with im? Is it his foot?" Brennan kept asking. No way she'd sleep, or get any other kind of rest, while Booth was being cut open.

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that. You're not his family or his wife."

"I'm his partner, okay? I have a right to know!"

The nurse sighed and looked at Brennan. Brennan glared back. The nurse gave in.

"We're operating on his foot right now, but that's not the biggest problem. His blood oxygenation levels suggest he didn't get enough air for quite some time."

"What are you talking about? We had plenty of oxygen, I broke the windo-"

She fell silent as realization hit her.

"Oh."

_She_'d had enough oxygen, but while she'd been looking for help she'd also been blocking her partner's air supply. It was her fault.

----

"Dr. Brennan? Are you conscious? Can you open your eyes?"

The voice was familiar. Brennan couldn't place it but the feeling of annoyance it caused didn't promise anything good. Reluctantly, she opened her eyes and blinked against the bright light.

"Daisy?!"

"Oh, thank god, you're okay! Yep, it's me, dr. Brennan. After my Lancelot fired me I thought it might be better to find a new job, since you're like, the only forensic anthropologist around, you know. So Lancelot told me that they needed more nurses here, and well, here I am! Isn't this great? I was afraid I might never see you again!"

Brennan stared at her blankly.

"Oh, right, you probably want to know what happened, don't you? Well, you fainted, most likely because of that nasty gash you've got at your hip there. I was just busy removing the glass when you woke up." Daisy said cheerfully, reminding Brennan why she'd fired Daisy in the first place.

"Is Booth out of surg- OUCH!" She screamed as she felt someone poking into her hip.

"Shouldn't you sedate me for this?"

Daisy looked up at her, confused. It took her a moment to realize her mistake.

"Oh my god, sorry! You were unconscious so I thought it wouldn't be necessary. Let me get a syringe…" Brennan grabbed Daisy's arm, stopping her from looking for another sharp instrument to stick into Brennan's hip.

"I don't care about my stupid hip, okay? Just find out where Booth is, or I _will_ get you fired from this place too. Trust me, I'll sue you for malpractice if it's the only way, do you understand?"

Daisy stood there for a while, motionless.

"Yeah, okay. I'll do that."

Brennan continued to glare at her as Daisy didn't move.

"Could you maybe.. let go of my arm?" Daisy asked shyly. Not moving her eyes, Brennan let go of said arm. As Daisy left the room Brennan could see the marks she'd left, but was too worried to feel guilty. For the first time, she looked at her hip, which was now starting to sting. The wound was deeper than she'd thought, but that didn't stop her from leaving. She rummaged through a few drawers, eventually finding a band-aid that looked big enough to cover the gash. She put it over the wound and pulled down her shirt, thought the bloodstain on it didn't really help. Strategically placing her hand over it, she walked out of the room, determined to find out where her partner was. At first, she was overwhelmed by the amount of people rushing around the place. Judging from her surroundings, she'd been brought to the ER. She made her way through the crowd to the nearest desk.

"Excuse me, could you tell me where Seeley Booth is? He was brought in here about two and a half hours ago."

"Are you family?"

Oh, not _again_. Not wanting to have to raise her voice against another innocent hospital employee, she faked a smile and told the nurse that yes, she was his wife. The nurse eyed her, clearly unconvinced, confirming Brennan's suspicions that her fake smile left a lot to be desired. Luckily, the nurse decided not to confront her about it and looked the name up.

"Sorry, I can't find anything about a Seeley Boot."

"Booth, not boot. And how did you spell his first name?"

"S-E-A-L-I-E."

Brennan rolled her eyes. "Just let me do this." She climbed over the counter and pushed against the chair the nurse was sitting in, causing it to roll into the busy crowd quite some distance from its original place.  
She looked at the computer screen and typed the name again, correctly this time. The computer found a record in the database and opened Booth's file. The screen said he'd gotten out of surgery about fifteen minutes ago and he was now in room 2506 for recovery. Brennan quickly closed the file and made her way out of the ER, hoping the nurse wouldn't track her down. As she stepped into an elevator, she realized she hadn't taken the time to ask which floor his room was on. Guessing it would be on the second floor, she pressed the button. The plate next to it informed her it was the 'intensive care' floor. At least it didn't say 'morgue', she thought, trying to copy Daisy's cheerfulness. As more people got into the elevator, Brennan noticed them staring at her. Confused, she looked down. Oh. The band-aid hadn't helped very much and her shirt was even more soaked with blood now. She placed her hand over it again, hoping people would think the blood wasn't her own.  
She finally arrived at the second floor, and luckily there were boards indicating which way to go. Though she practically ran through the halls, she froze when she actually got to Booth's room. How many times would she have to go through seeing him like that? He looked peaceful, sleeping. But the tubes in his nose and arms and the heart rate monitor betrayed that he was anything but fine. She chuckled as she saw the pudding waiting for him. The staff probably remembered him and his love for the food from his previous visits. She hesitated for a moment, then entered the room. It was silent inside, apart from the steady blips coming from the monitor. Brennan took a chair from the corner of the room and positioned it next to Booth's bed.  
As she sat down on it, she took Booth's hand in her own. A small smile formed on her lips as she heard the tempo of the blips increase slightly. She rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes, finally realizing how tired she was.

----

Brennan woke up as she felt a hand squeezing her own. She shot up and took in the room. Her back was sore from lying in a strange position the whole night, as she could vaguely see light coming through the blinds. Remembering the reason she was in the room, she turned around.

"You're awake?"

"Have been for a while actually, but I didn't want to wake you up." He said, smiling.

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine."

"I almost killed you, Booth! I should've thought of the fact that I was blocking the only entrance."

"Relax, I'm going to be fine. They got all the glass out of my foot and I'm not brain damaged.. I think."

"Then why are you bleeding?" She said, looking at the bloodstain on the bed.

"That's not my blood, Bones."

"Huh? Oh, right," she said as she remembered her own injury "maybe I should let Daisy know I'm alright. She's probably worried."

Booth didn't react, and Brennan took it as confusion.

"Yeah, she works here now. I think I scared her a little last night.."

"I know. She came into the room a while ago, she looked terrified when she saw you. What did you do to her?"

"She was keeping me from finding you!"

"Let me guess, she was taking care of your wound?"

"That.." she struggled to find the right word "_woman_ was pulling pieces of glass out of me without sedation. So, I threatened to get her fired."

Booth laughed, imagining the scene in his head.

"Come here." He said, motioning for her to get back on the bed.

Brennan hesitated for a moment. "Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you.."

"Bones, just get over here, will you?" He smiled at her.

She gave in and lay down next to him, enjoying his body heat as he possessively slung an arm around her.

"Angela stopped by too, by the way." He said after a moment.

"How long have you been awake exactly?" Brennan asked, a little hurt that she hadn't been the first one to know he was going to be okay.

"A couple of hours.. but the point is that Angela told me they found her. Heather Taffet, and her sister. Apparently they couldn't resist the temptation of following us and the squints were able to track the signal. So we've got one less serial killer to worry about, huh Bones?"

"She's still alive. What if she escapes again?"

"She won't, I promise. They've got constant surveillance on her and she's not longer allowed to have visitors. And I'll do everything I can to get her convicted as soon as possible, okay?"

"'Kay." Brennan mumbled. She'd like to believe Booth but her rational side knew there was always a risk. She just hoped her rationality was wrong, for once.

**_______________________________________________________________**

**Why is it that all my fics seem to end with Booth in a hospital bed lately? xD **

**It feels strange not to have a new chapter to write.. I've been working on this story for quite some time now :( I'd really like to know what you thought of it, not only this chapter but also the story as a whole :) So all you 95 story alerters out there and everyone else who reads this: see that button there? It says 'click me and make a writer happy!' in japanese. The site just translated it wrong :)**

**xBJ**


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